Seven Days of Catsmas

For various reasons, including the high cost of airfare and the high stress related to certain family members, I stayed in the relative vicinity of my New England home for the late-December holiday season this year. While it is unusual for me not to spend Christmas with my family of origin, it is not unprecedented. A few years ago, I visited a friend in Austin, TX, and spent my vacation drinking whiskey and watching peacocks wander around a park. But usually I am with one of my parents and at least a couple of siblings and some kind of brightly lit tree, etc.

This year I decided that rather than just sit around my house alone during my time off work I would make myself useful, so I asked around to see if anyone in the area needed house or pet sitting and if I could live in their house like it was my vacation home. It just seemed like a good way to take care of myself and also my friends and also their animal friends. And I got so many responses! In the end, I booked myself at four places with the intention of riding throughout the land, spreading joy and petting cats all along Rte. 5 or I-91 or whatever.

As I write this, I'm in the middle of Catsmas Tour 2014, in a rural VT schoolhouse with a wood stove and two furry friends chasing each other around. You have left me candy, eggnog, play-doh, vets' phone numbers, and more. I have scooped poop. I have listened to your Wu-Tang tapes. And I have written you a song. Good luck trying to sing it.

On the 7th day of Catsmas, you all gave to Cat Santa:
7 furry felines
6 Goose Island Festivity Ales (okay I got those myself)
5 logs a-burning
4 wifi passwords
3 hours waiting (for takeout from the Chinese restaurant on Christmas Eve)
2 cool keychains
and a fish on top of a fridge.

Also, this happened:

If Santa Claus (1959) has taught me anything, it's that visiting homes at Christmastime
means occasionally getting in prank fights with gay, joker-pants Satan.

It's Love on Wheels

On Sunday I went rollerskating for the first time in 15 years, and maybe the second time in 30. I was really nervous. My knees already hurt when I climb stairs; I don't need to fall on them. But I didn't. In the two hours I was at Interskate 91 (warning: web page plays music you don't want anyone to think you're listening to on purpose), I went from wobbly barely-standing to fairly confident gliding around in circles. The memory of how to move was still inside me somewhere.

So that felt good.

I had a moment, too, one of many I've had over the last year or so, of feeling swept up in the romance of my life, of being in friend-love with this group of queers that had talked me into doing something youthful and silly and possibly slightly dangerous. Maybe it was the saccharine pop music blaring over the speakers at the skating rink or the memory of being 7 under disco lights holding my friend's hand as we spun around corners. Sometimes I think I'm missing romantic love in my life when I'm not dating anyone special, so it's nice to be reminded that I have everything I need and want if I just notice it.

Haiku for Rollerskating at 38

Bodies remember,
Then the heart can open up.
Mind comes in last.

Trying to skate backward (looks a lot like standing still).

Your Place or Never Mind?

Haiku for Non-Initiators

Well, we got this far.
Now we're sitting on a couch.
Thirteen is awkward.

Pair of Hearts

You'd think, given my recent experience with re-watching Purple Rain, that I would go into watching Grease expecting some surprising revelations about how this favorite film from my formative years shaped who I am today.

But I was mostly too distracted by the overacting, overt misogyny, and disco influence on Travolta's dancing to notice much more than "Hey, those T-birds are some snappy dressers."

Until I got to this scene:

I don't know how I didn't make this connection before, but I almost have Kenickie's exact tattoo.

For the rest of the movie, I kept an eye out for what else I had internalized from time spent with Rydell High's inhabitants. Definitely the boys' fashion sense and not, thankfully, their contributions to rape culture. A sexual proclivity for hot rods and their drivers. A deep yearning for a date who can dance or at least strut.

And the lyrics to this song:

Haiku for Hopeless Devotion

My head is saying, 

"Fool, forget him." My heart is 

saying, "Don't let go."